WAR IN nEDJAS AND YEMEN. 113 tection of the country of the Holy Prophet, especially to that of Mecca and Medina, the former of which, along with the great chaaba, contains within its walls also the Well and Baths of Purification.

Never, for a moment either, did his calculating mind lose sight of the ports of the Red Sea and their trade with India (Hind), the influence of the large caravans, which brought from all parts of the world where Islam existed crowds of pilgrims to the holy shrines and purifying springs, or the quantity of gold these pilgrims or future Hadji expended (a highly honourable title among both Greeks and Turks, and gained by such pilgrimages), and by their means opening up an intercourse with the land of Yemen, and its rich and important trading city of Mocca, where coffee already yields such great gains. It may here be remarked, in passing, that the richer inhabitants of Yemen, as also those of Hedjas, do not use the beans of the coffee in preparing that liquid, but the inner shell or skin that contains these, which they hold to be much higher and better flavoured ; they also mix in their coffee cloves, cinnamon, aromatic spices and gums, so that this beverage with them is very similar to a perfumed cordial. Nor do they drink it in such small portions as are usual in Egypt and Turkey, but the attending slave holds ready a large vessel, from which he fills the cups as often as they are emptied, while his masters sit and smoke their well-loved long dschihschi* pipes, with long tubes passed through water, that the smoke may come cold to the mouth, and which, when a few inveterate smokers meet together, kee[) up a boiling and bubbling noise, not unlike a di>tant corps of drummers in full performance.

The battle with the races of Arabia now began, but never had any of Mehemet All's former wars devoured so many bleeding victims as this with the races of Hedjas and Yemen. Their lands proved a bottomless gulph that nothing could satisfy ; and only by the gix'atest exertions, did he in the end manage to overrun, and in a measure conquer, these tribes. For although, after long-continued marches of twenty-four or twenty-six hours, without the smallest rest, among rocky hills, burning plains, without water, evmy where harassed by Arabs and tormented by fearful heat, the • So oallcil by the Persians with wliom tlicy originated; hy the Greeks, nargilc; blhe Turks, ncrschile.

I